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TAMPA - Carmen de la Grana, 81, who defied the conventions of her day by becoming a successful businesswoman and a leading activist in Ybor City for 40 years, died Friday at her Tampa home. She was 81.
Mrs. de la Grana's life changed drastically in 1958 when she was forced to take control of the de la Grana Travel Agency after her husband, Frank, died.
With two children, no experience and not even a driver's license, Mrs. de la Grana became the boss. Staff members quit. A large sum of agency money disappeared. To save the business, Mrs. de la Grana had to dip into her savings account, said her daughter, Maryse Parrino.
"Nobody thought she was going to make it," Parrino said. "It was a man's world in 1958. Women just didn't own businesses. She had to become one of the boys in the Ybor Chamber. She had to deal with all these men."
Mrs. de la Grana did just that, for the next 35 years, in an era that spanned the decline and rebirth of Ybor. While most businesses went bankrupt or fled to suburban locales, Mrs. de la Grana and a handful of others stuck it out.
The family still owns the building where the agency was. Now the Green Iguana is there, and her son, Frank de la Grana, has a law practice on the second floor.
Mrs. de la Grana was a member of Altrusa International, Red Cross Angels, Las Damas del Centro Asturiano and the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce. She is survived by a son and daughter; a brother, Louis O. Rubio, and four grandchildren.
A funeral Mass will be at noon Tuesday at at O.L.P.H. Catholic Church at 1711 11th Ave.